, the world'soldestcityisanother place that people visit. there is obviously east jerusalem and the old city. one of the things he was saying that he might push in the future is walking, hiking, that sort of thing, activity holidays. >> all right, from manger square, thank you very much indeed. we will just show you briefly these pictures from the midnight mass. in many parts of the world, the 24th, the night before christmas really is the most important holy day of the year, and we can take you now to the vatican. pope benedict is holding a midnight mass at st. peter's basilica in the vatican. it is not yet midnight in italy, but because of the pope's health and to give him time to rest before he delivers the christmas day message, this year, the ceremony began at 9:00 gmt, and that would be 10:00 in italy, which was just about one hour ago. the pope conducting this mess and also lighting the candle of peace, which he did earlier and put on the balcony of his apartment window, which overlooks st. peter's square. this is one of the largest churches anywhere in the world. there are touri

into gangs of killing and destruction. the army hasdestroyedcitiesandtowns. it has committed massacres against our people, who took to the streets to demand freedom. long live syria, free and europe. >> he also defected from the bashar al-assad government. before that he held several high-ranking posts including the ambassador to sweden. i asked him how significant it is. >> it is very significant because one of the highest- ranking officers that have affected so far, and this man is the head of the military police and he must know a lot of things that have been going on by the army, invading the cities and killing civilians and bombarding the area with chemical weapons. he has said homs was bombed with chemical weapons. this is his statement. i think he was in a position to do this because you have all the reports coming to him. >> is it really that significant given that bashar al-assad still can count the military in multiples of tens of thousands? he is getting help from the russians, the iranians, and also has fallen out of lebanon. he looks pretty secure and appears to be acting

in the previous year. one man knows a lot about that subject, newyorkcity's deputypolice commissioner, paul brown, who joins us live right now. mr. brown, congratulations. how have you done it? >> thank you, mainly through 35,000 men and women in uniform, but particularly through something called operation at attack where we send as many uniformed police officers as possible into areas where we have seen spikes and violence, particularly shootings. >> that sounds almost like a back to basics campaign. why was the decision taken to go in that direction? >> well, it started with mayor bloomberg and commissioner kelly coming into the office right after 9/11 with a deep downturn in the economy, less tax revenue. we lost 6000 police officers through attrition, we have 6000 fewer now than we had then. that forced us to take a look at how we deploy officers into the city. instead of dividing them up as we usually did into 76 precincts, we focused better on defining exactly where the most violent crimes were happening and putting the biggest number of officers there, the biggest bang for the block.

fragments remains. it came down close tothecityofshymkent. >> a plane has crash landed on a road in burma. two died and 11 were injured when the aircraft came down three kilometers short of its intended destination. here is our report. >> a burned-out shell now lying in a field. this was an aircraft flying an internal route popular with terrorists. the plane crashed into a rice field just before 9:00 a.m. local time. it was en route from the old capital to heho, which is the gateway place to the lake. one of the passengers told the bbc how they circled the airport before they tried to land. >> we went in those clouds, and suddenly we crashed. we just hit the ground, and then it was all red, and orange, and smoke came. then we saw some fire. then the steward he is opened the emergency exit. we thought it better to get out as soon as possible before it might explode. >> there had been 65 passengers and six crew on board. investigators are trying to determine the exact cause of the crash. some reports suggest an engine fire. the fatalities include a motor cyclist on the ground. the

no good. -- kylie minogue. 7 tons of fireworks filled the air above sydney harbour bridge.thiscity's styleis rather different. john yang has held what for help -- it's believed to be the first public new year celebration in north korea. burma has joined the global party. ♪ >> the end of the year would not be complete without the viral pop hit, "gangnam style" being performed with great enthusiasm. while hong kong celebrate with a virtuous so show over victoria harbor. fireworks lit up moscow's red square. in dubai, they filmed the midnight moment under the world's tallest building. the gulf states is eager to take its place among the world's best known venues for the dawn of the new year. >> no happy new year in syria. the situation is as great as ever. the bodies of 30 people found with signs of torture in a suburb of damascus. the international peace negotiator of syria urged to push for peace talks between the government and rebels. the country could become a failed state ruled by warlords. in iraq, a wave of attacks killed nearly 23 people and injured more than 80 as a car b

a hot drink. many have complained that very often these shelters on and on the outskirts ofmajorcitiesofsometimes too hard to find. >> you need to take a bus to get there but i don't have any money to pay for my fair. i don't think i would be better off there. >> many homeless ukrainians will have to spend the new year holiday in these temporary shelters. according to weather forecasts, if a bit warmer in the ukraine in january. >> an ambitious mission to drill through 3 kilometers of antarctic ice has been cut short. they aimed to explore a lake that had been hidden for half a million years. the project to find hints of simple life existing in these extreme conditions. however, they failed and the team was forced to abandon the project. >> this is science at his toughest into this video from the british and arctic survey shows that backbreaking effort by 12 scientists and engineers trying to drill through the ice. with bare hands on steel, the mission depended on hot water being blasted down into the ice to open the routes to an ancient lake. from a tiny camp on the ice, it was to e